


Let's Fuck On The Moon

by nah_tho



Series: Dumb Interspecies Relations [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awkward Flirting, Blow Jobs, Brad brews beer and collects stamps the fucking nerd, Drunken Flirting, Explicit Consent, M/M, Macarons, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Size Difference, Size Kink, Taako/Kravitz but background, blue taako, criminal misuse of d&d canon, moon elf taako, ruining your old employer's candlenights staff party, spoilers probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 02:49:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12202377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nah_tho/pseuds/nah_tho
Summary: Nobody but Taako can make it to this year's Candlenights staff party at the BoB.He's not someone who should be left to his own devices.





	Let's Fuck On The Moon

**Author's Note:**

> You enter the room. You’re earlier than I expected.
> 
> My arms are full of D&D 5e play books, so many I struggle to hold them all. We make eye contact. I am surprised for a moment. One book slides through the circle of my arms, and then two.
> 
> Volo’s Guide To Monsters clatters to the floor. The Player’s Handbook follows, bouncing on its spine and falling open to a page. Which page is unimportant. There is a page, and it is exposed.
> 
> We are still making eye contact, or we aren’t and never were. One of these things is true.
> 
> I am blinking, or casting Blink, or staring, unblinking, at you, and then I am gone.
> 
> This page is still exposed.

Elves don’t sleep.

This was a problem for Taako.

This was a problem because he was never really able to outrun the stupid shit he’d done, not even when he was drunk.

He’d spent the remains of the early morning occasionally drifting out of his practised meditations and into brief, drunken fits of hands-to-face embarrassment, and he could feel now that this was the last time he’d surface, no matter how successful he had been at quashing those feelings and returning to his carefully cultivated meditative space.

He stared at the ceiling of his quarters for a long moment before scrabbling blindly for his Stone of Farspeech and wailing for his boyfriend.

 _“Good morning, Taako,”_ Kravitz murmured from the Stone. To Taako’s tired ears, he almost sounded amused. _“I was going to ask if you were feeling better, but…”_

“What?” He squinted, still bleary with the remains of his chosen dream. “No, it’s like- I mean- Krav,” he said, trying to imbue his voice with as much gravity as possible. “Krav, my life is over,” he croaked, throwing a hand over his eyes despite the lack of an audience. He liked to think it added depth to his vocal performance- well, when he liked to think, which certainly wasn’t when his head was a static-riddled mess of mostly-processed alcohol.

 _“I know,”_ Kravitz said, and there was no mistake, now: he sounded very amused. _“You told me the same thing last night.”_

Taako pressed his hands to his eyes and groaned.

***

_The Night Before:_

“You’re actually the worst. This is the worst,” he groused, again, for what probably wouldn’t be the last time, no matter what he said.

 _“I know, babe,”_ Kravitz said, nothing but a tinny voice vibrating through his Stone. _“Next year. I’ll make it up to you.”_

“Krav,” he said, Stone close to his lips, planting a hand on the smooth wooden surface of his dresser and staring his reflection deep in its eyes, each as gorgeous and as luminously green as sunlight shining through an empty wine bottle. “Lup and Barry are doing their grim reaper thing, like you, because your boss hates fun. Merle is busy with his kids on some fucking adventure thing. Magnus has… a dog? I think?” Kravitz laughed. “Angus is studying for his finals. Do you know what that means, Krav?”

 _“You’ll be all alone at the Bureau of Benevolence’s Candlenights party this year,”_ Kravitz answered dutifully, sounding genuinely apologetic.

“No,” Taako said, leaning in close to his Stone, “well, yes- but no. I’m going to be all alone, with no one to bother me,” he whined, running a hand down the front of his festive red silk onesie, “when I could be having sex on top of the glass floor in my old quarters.”

 _“I-”_ Kravitz started.

“We could be having sex on the moon,” Taako informed him, more than a little accusatory.

Kravitz laughed. _“Taako, you’ll… no matter where you are or who you’re with, people love you,”_ he said, so adoring that shivers ran up Taako’s shoulders. _“I love you. I know it sucks that we can’t be together this Candlenights, but… everyone will love you anyway.”_

He took a moment to shake the helplessly goofy feeling that induced all through him before responding. “Yeah, but… sex on the moon, Krav,” he complained.

 _“Sometimes you just can’t get a day to yourself. Working for the Raven Queen, right? But, seriously, maybe you’ll find some… cute new hire to help you check that, uh, particular box?”_ Kravitz suggested. Taako could hear his smile.

“Mm,” he demurred, unimpressed, “like that Transmutation professor Ren introduced me to?” he suggested, mock-thoughtful. “The one who won’t stop following me around campus and pretending it’s a coincidence?”

Kravitz laughed again, this time a bit more ruefully. _“I already told you that if it gets too bad, I’ll handle it,”_ he assured, _“but anyway, um… okay, maybe some old hire, then?”_

“Sure,” Taako drawled, actually letting the Stone touch his lips for a moment. “Like who? Avi? Mm, no, straight. Johann? Oh, no, that’s right, I forgot-” he hummed disingenuously, staring at his own reflection. “You know, I hear Leon is single these days-”

***

_The First Beer:_

He’d made macarons, as was expected, and had circulated them appropriately.

Everything was going fine.

Until everything went wrong, as he would insist on telling Kravitz later, repeatedly, and without being asked.

Everything going wrong started with a single event: an orc walked up to him.

An orc walked up to him carrying a sizeable wooden case of glass beer bottles, perched against his hip, and said,

“Taako! It’s been a long time. How have you been?”

In Taako’s defense, this orc was wearing a hideously ugly Candelights sweater that stretched tight across his muscular chest.

In Taako’s defense, his hands were so large they could still cradle nearly a third of that carefully-balanced case of beer in one palm.

In Taako’s defense, it wasn’t an affectation, not this time: he genuinely didn’t recognize the hulking orc with the horn-rimmed glasses and long ponytail beyond a general, vaguely admiring sense of _oh, look at you_ and a strong feeling that this was exactly the wrong sense to have.

In Brad’s defense, he really was just so graceful about how he handled Taako having clearly forgotten who he was.

“Brad Bradson, Humanoid Resources,” he said, smiling down at Taako.

Taako snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “You’re that fucking nerdass from Camp… whateverthefuck,” he asserted confidently. “Didn’t you collect stamps?”

Brad’s smooth grey-green face didn’t even flicker before he laughed, by all appearances utterly delighted. “You remembered that?” he remarked, “you know, I think it’s really fascinating, the way Faerun’s postal system has evolved over the last couple of decades-”

Taako narrowly prevented himself from making an unmistakable vomiting sound, and instead, his next question came out, “Uuuuuuuuh…. macaroon?”

Brad’s smile was unmistakably genuine, tusk-like teeth or no. “Thank you, Taako,” he said smoothly, taking one with surprising delicacy for someone with such huge hands. “Would you like a beer? I can’t remember if I’d mentioned it, but I also do a little bit of home brewing.”

“Sure,” Taako answered, and pulled a beer from the box under Brad’s arm, mostly for a lack of anything else to say or do.

Brad smiled at him. Taako found himself having some difficulty ignoring the way his deep-set black eyes glittered in the lights of the Candlenights bush as he spoke. “Whenever you’re done, just bring your bottle back,” he instructed gently, and then smiled again. “Please.”

“Mm,” Taako answered, at this point already chugging like it might save him.

***

_The Second Beer:_

He brought back his bottle, dutifully, mostly just because it wasn’t interesting enough to keep.

Brad smiled at him again, the skin creasing around his eyes. “Would you like another, Taako?”

“I don’t have any more macaroons-” he started to protest, but Brad was already waving dismissively and pulling a fresh bottle out from under his arm.

It was beaded with glittering diamonds of condensation.

Taako took it.

***

_The Third Beer:_

“You have something in your hair,” Taako announced, sliding his empty bottle into Brad’s box with one hand and reaching up with the other.

Brad gave him a slightly tense smile, gently intercepting his hand before it could touch the silvery patch at his temple. Taako noticed, again, just how big his hand was. “It’s nothing,” he smiled, “it’s just… not all of us live into their hundreds, Taako. It’s just a little grey hair.”

“Oh. Well, it’s fine,” Taako said, “I mean, it looks good on you.” He really wasn’t sure what else to say.

Two beers earlier, he may have noticed the way Lucretia’s head swiveled to stare at him.

***

_The Fourth and Fifth Beers:_

The rest of the attendees of the Candlenight’s party had filtered out, off to bed or to seek a quiet corner elsewhere. Taako didn’t expect to look up and suddenly find himself alone with one Brad Bradson, diligently tidying up, but he found he wasn’t complaining.

As the not-inconsiderable alcoholic content of Brad’s beers had sunk into him, loosening his muscles and his tongue, he’d grown less resistant to the idea that he should admire the broad shoulders and muscular back beneath that still frankly hideous Candlenights sweater.

He slid up, obviously sensuous, to slip another empty bottle in Brad’s box.

Brad smiled at him and said, “You know, Taako, I’m really glad we had this chance to bond. It’s a shame I haven’t the chance to be around for the last few Candlenights- you really are a delight.” His tone and his smile spoke volumes of pure, genuine admiration.

Taako was not a subtle creature.

“Hey, Brad,” he started.

“Yes, Taako?” Brad smiled.

“Where are you sleeping tonight?”

Brad honestly looked perplexed. “In… in my quarters. Why do you ask?”

Taako let his fingers fold themselves into finger guns and winked at him. “Well, my man, you could be sleeping with me.”

It wasn’t a joke.

Brad clearly recognized that it wasn’t a joke.

Taako immediately recognized the rictus of polite uncertainty that froze over the grey-green landscape of his face.

Very calmly, he removed two more beers from Brad’s box, waved his arms in a swooping upwards gesture with one in each hand, murmured something vague, embarrassed, and magical, and cast Blink.

***

_Where We Left Off:_

_“And then you called me, uh, claiming that we needed to move to a new planar system because your life was over,”_ Kravitz’ voice told him helpfully from where his Stone of Farspeech rested on his chest.

Taako wailed in answer, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Brad,” he squawked, “motherfucking Bradson- it couldn’t be anyone else, could it? Not anyone?”

 _“Do you think he’s likely to… gossip, Taako? I could see how that could make things uncomfortable,”_ Kravitz ventured.

Taako shook his head, and then remember Kravitz couldn’t see him. “No,” he grumbled, “but I’ll know what I did. I’ll always know.”

Kravitz laughed.

***

Ordinarily, he didn’t leave his room until at least ten in the morning, but this time he found himself slinking out into the elevator that would take him from his old quarters at the bottom of the moon and into the common areas of the Bureau at half-past five, hoping desperately no one was awake.

Someone was.

The worst someone.

“Taako,” he started, just as soon as the elevator doors had opened enough for them to see and identify one another. Brad, unfortunately for him, was a little quicker on that particular draw.

Taako cast Blink and sprinted past him into the hallway, down it, and around the corner, just in time to slip back into the Material Plane. He froze, holding his breath. He could feel the muscles that controlled the rotation of his ears tightening, pulling them back towards where he knew Brad had to be, almost as if he genuinely was being stalked by a predator.

He heard Brad sigh. “Taako, please.” He missed whatever the orc said next: the moment he realized his voice was growing closer, he Blinked back into the Ethereal Plane and dashed further down the hall.

He was still in that greyscale landscape when he heard Brad come around the corner with a _“Taako? Hm,”_ but only just barely- he was running out of time before he had to Blink back.

There was a long, terrible moment in which he was sure he’d come back into the Material Plane in the middle of the hallway, fully exposed to prying Orcish eyes, but he caught sight of a recessed spot in the wall and darted into it, pressing his body up against an unmarked door as colour bled back into the world.

Whether from unexpected exertion put to a body made more for beauty than function or just as an aftereffect of what could have been a nasty hangover in any lesser elf, his lungs were already burning after only twenty-odd feet and a half a minute of running. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed Brad to take a hint, trying hard not to wheeze.

Brad did not, in fact, take a hint.

“Taako, please, this is getting ridiculous,” Brad said from immediately behind him, or would have, if Taako hadn’t shrieked and whipped around to face him halfway through the second half of his sentence.

Back pressed hard against the door and heart thundering in his ears, he considered Blinking back into the Ethereal Plane in one last bid for escape, but the back of his tongue was already starting to take on the burnt, coppery taste of overexertion and he wasn’t sure how far he’d make it if he did.

So he opted for plan B, which was to breathlessly shriek,

“What is _wrong_ with you?” in a tone of indignation that implied he wasn’t the one who’d just burnt a third-level spell slot for the second time in twenty-four hours for the sole purpose of trying to avoid an awkward conversation.

Brad treated him to a look of seemingly infinite patience. “Taako, I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us,” he started, and Taako groaned, sliding to the floor and covering his face with his hands.

He heard, rather than saw, Brad squat down in front of him to match his elevation. He did not appreciate the gesture.

“Taako, while I really was very flattered by your, uh, expression of interest,” Brad said diplomatically, “I’m afraid I had some concerns-”

Taako interrupted him to groan again, this time more loudly, like it might work as a substitute for the longer and much more involved “I understand what you’re saying but really don’t think we need to have this conversation and would also appreciate it if you never spoke to me again,” which was how he felt about the situation.

It did not.

“I’m afraid I had some concerns,” Brad repeated smoothly, “about your level of intoxication, which I take full responsibility for, and felt it would be irresponsible to-”

He almost made a comment about how getting drunk and ruining a relationship with a co-worker- previous or current- was the whole point of a Candlenights staff party, but the more interesting subtext of what Brad was saying registered before he could.

The muscles behind and below his ears started to loosen, allowing them to swivel forwards attentively. He parted his fingers just enough to peer at Brad from between them.

If Brad knew what he’d just implied, he didn’t show any sign of it.

“-regardless of the nature of our interactions, I would never want you to feel uncomfortable-”

“Brad?” Taako queried from behind his hands.

Brad paused. “Yes, Taako?”

“I have a burning question for you, Brad,” he started, and then started again as something else occurred to him. “Well, two, actually. Can I ask you something? A couple of somethings?”

“Ask me anything.” Brad’s smile was unsuspecting.

“First things first,” he murmured, slowly lowering his hands from his face, “I do want to know how you found me so fast when I was l literally on _another plane of existence_ , my man. I mean, I could’ve gone either way and you were just… bam, on me, you know? That was some spooky fucking shit you did there.”

Brad looked both surprised and a little apologetic. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Taako, I’m sorry- but as for finding you, well,” his eyes flickered over Taako’s face and body with something like appraisal, “you’re using some kind of… illusion magic on yourself? I don’t really understand why, but I had originally cast Detect Magic hoping to pick up your trail from something you were wearing, and you…”

Ah, Taako thought. Despite his revelation of Wonderland’s effect on his appearance to Kravitz, he did still cast Disguise Self as a general habit when he was amongst others.

He dropped the spell with a sigh, gesturing to his plainer self with a sweeping gesture. “There you have it, the great reveal,” he announced, scrutinizing the skin on the back of his hands, suddenly a so much less delicate, less transparent shade of soft blue.

When he looked up again, the first thing he noticed was how, instead of looking shocked or even disturbed, as he’d expected, Brad just looked sort of puzzled.

“You got something you wanna say, my man?” Taako asked, frowning.

Brad opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I can tell that you were expecting a more…. dynamic response from me, and at the risk of perhaps being accused of racial insensitivity,” he said, speaking slowly and with obvious care, “I am not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing that would… elicit that.”

Taako squinted at him. “What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Brad said, pushing his glasses up his nose before settling his hands on his thighs, “I… can’t actually see a difference here, Taako, I’m sorry.”

Taako just sort of looked at him.

Taako just sort of looked at him for long enough that he started to shift uncertainly and offered another, even more bewildered-sounding,

“I’m sorry, Taako, I really am,” and then a gentle, “you said had another question for me?”

Taako remembered, and promptly forgot why he had been staring at Brad. “I did,” he purred, smiling in a way that would’ve alarmed someone more familiar with his personality. “I do. Bradson?”

“Yes, Taako?”

“Burning question, Brad Bradson,” he lilted, turning his head to give Brad a sidelong glance, “when you said you ‘had concerns’ about how sloppy drunk I was, were you or were you not saying that, oh, maybe,” and he took his time savouring the question, because he could see that despite how attentive he was being, Brad hadn’t quite picked up on what he was putting down yet, “just maybe, things might’ve ended differently for cha boy if I hadn’t been?”

“If you hadn’t been?” Brad parroted, clearly still processing the question.

“Sloppy drunk, I mean,” Taako provided helpfully.

He watched comprehension bloom across Brad’s face with both apprehension and a sort of weird, semi-sadistic delight.

Brad opened his mouth.

Brad closed his mouth.

Brad swallowed visibly.

Taako waved a hand loosely, feigning indifference. “It’s fine, that’s fine,” he dismissed, “your boy Taako was just curious, no big-”

“I’m not-” Brad started, and then stopped, and then immediately took off his glasses and started cleaning them with a cloth Taako couldn’t decide hadn’t appeared out of nowhere. “I wasn’t… opposed,” he said, inspecting his glasses or his lap or just anywhere that wasn’t Taako’s face, it seemed, really, “Like I said, I found your interest very flattering, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to-”

“And what if,” Taako interrupted, propping his chin up on a palm, “what if, Bradson? Hm?”

Brad paused in the middle of his third or fourth round of lens-wiping and glanced up at him. “What if… what?”

“What if… now?” Taako mimicked, not actually meaning to sound mocking but succeeding in doing so anyway.

“You’re asking me,” Brad said, slow and careful again, “if I would respond differently if you were to… approach me with the same… proposal now.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“Well?” Taako prompted.

Brad looked at him, but continued to fidget with his glasses. “Are you?”

“Am I what?” he teased.

Brad frowned at him. “Are you… propositioning me, Taako?”

He really did mean to respond with something that wasn’t a squawk of laughter, but the way Brad had chosen to phrase that particular question caught him thoroughly off his guard.

Brad put his glasses back on and rose out of his crouch so quickly Taako couldn’t even pretend he hadn’t gotten the wrong idea. “It’s been lovely chatting with you, Taako, and now that we’ve cleared up this little misunderstanding, I’m afraid I really do have to-”

Taako shot to his feet, dextrously grabbing Brad by the lanyard before he could hurry away. “Woah, woah, woah, cool it, my dude, where are you going?” he asked, trying his best not to sound like he really was setting Brad up for some sort of cruel prank. “I wasn’t, um…”

Brad gave him a wary look, body still turned out into the hallway, as if to leave. “Taako, are you or aren’t you serious about this?”

Taako fidgeted with the lanyard in his hand. A trickle of nervous energy was starting to creep into him now that they were drifting out of hypotheticals and into Something That Might Actually Happen territory. “That depends,” he said, finally.

“On?”

“What your answer would be, I guess,” he said, and felt heat starting to rise in his face. Somehow, instead of the indifference he’d been aiming for, what had come out of his mouth had sounded desperately shy. He decided never to speak ever again.

This was a resolution he would forget almost instantly, but in the moment, he was firmly dedicated to the thought.

Brad sent a cautious glance down to Taako’s fingers where they were tangling themselves in the cord above his keys and employee card before looking up at him again. “I… suppose my answer would depend on whether or not you were serious,” he murmured, dark eyes watchful. “So. Taako, I believe this is the sort of moment where you might say ‘this one’s on you’, isn’t it?”

 “But that doesn’t-” Taako started to protest, and then rolled his eyes so extravagantly that, for a moment, it actually looked like Brad might laugh, despite the strange and serious mood he’d built between them. “Okay, this got dumb. This one got real dumb real fast,” he complained, and leapt into action before he could second guess himself and before Brad could somehow worsen what was already shaping up to be one of Taako’s least favourite preludes to something that, if it did happen, he was very much hoping would be at least a little fun, all things considered.

He was still speaking when he closed both hands around Brad’s lanyard and yanked.

This was not, as might be assumed, so much a ploy to bring Brad down to his level as it was a bid to improve his aim as he rolled up onto his toes and attempted to plant a firm kiss on the lips of the biggest fucking nerd on the moon.

And he did.

It wasn’t the best kiss: surprising anyone with a kiss tended to mean inviting not just their lips, but their teeth, along for the ride.

And, as Taako discovered pretty well immediately, surprising an orc with a kiss apparently meant inviting their teeth to skip right over the Calling Shotgun part and slide on into the Guess Who’s Driving part of that particular variety of road trip.

Brad, to his credit, responded quickly. Taako felt enormous fingers touch his chin almost at the same time as some minor adjustments on his partner’s part turned the experience from a dental examination into something a bit more like a traditional kiss.

 He was just starting to congratulate himself on having gotten the ball rolling in a much sexier and less awkward direction when Brad pulled back.

“Hm?” Taako hummed inquisitively, surprised by the abrupt lack of contact. “What’s up, my man?”

Brad’s thumb traced a line along his jaw and across his chin. “So you’re serious, then,” he said.

The warmth that had been lingering beneath the skin of Taako’s face bloomed into a raw heat he recognized as meaning his cheeks and nose had just turned his whole face into a miniature sunset: dusky violet fading into lavender fading into periwinkle blue.

Brad immediately responded with a soft “huh,” which was a reaction Taako had long since learned meant _oh, what’s this? let me get a better look at you_ every single time.

He was, in fact, already tilting Taako’s chin up and shifting himself out of the way of the light when Taako answered.

“Yeah,” he croaked, “yeah, so are you in or are you out?” he demanded, hating the way his face only seemed to grow hotter under the weight of Brad’s obvious curiousity. “Because if you’re out, then no, it was all a joke, haha, Taako’s a dick, what else is fuckin’ new-”

“Look at you,” Brad said admiringly, both hands raised in investigation now. Taako could feel his fingers creeping into his hair as he pushed it back from his face.

“Maybe don’t, actually,” Taako muttered.

“Don’t look at you?” One of Brad’s dark eyebrows was creeping up.

“Yeah, don’t fucking look at me,” Taako complained, twisting his hands in both Brad’s lanyard and the front of his button-down shirt and trying not to notice the obvious enjoyment being had at his expense. “How about that, let’s try _not_ looking at Taako, how’s that for a new flavour-”

“How could I not?” Brad murmured, smoothing his thumbs across Taako’s cheeks. “How could I not look at you? Gods, you’re so beautiful, Taako.”

He actually had no idea what it was that his face was doing in that moment, because he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so completely like it had actually caught on fire, but whatever it was doing, it was clearly delighting Brad to no end.

“Oh, look at you,” he murmured again, and that was the moment.

That was the moment Taako decided this was worse than the terrible, stupid, infuriating conversation they’d been having before. He could feel his ears swiveling backwards and down like they were trying to escape.

He disentangled himself from both shirt and lanyard and slapped Brad’s hands away so viciously that their departure brought his hair tumbling forward into his face.

“Are you,” he snarled, “in, or are you out?” He barely realized he was punctuating each word with a stamp of his booted foot until it began to ache. “I asked you a question, Brad _mother-fucking_ Bradson.”

Despite the fact that his voice had risen to an indignant shriek over the course of his delivery, despite the fact that he was almost certain that he was making an extremely ugly expression, and despite the fact that he had literally started to shake with embarrassment and poorly suppressed outrage, Brad chuckled.

Brad chuckled, and Brad leaned down, and Brad kissed him, and Brad murmured,

“I’m in,”

against his lips.

“Then you need to be in the fucking elevator before I am, because I _will_ leave you behind, Bradson, I don’t even give a _shit_ anymore,” he seethed, and tried to shove past and go about making his exit as dramatic as possible.

He did not succeed.

Orcs, as it turned out, were extremely difficult to shove anywhere, including out of the way.

Brad took one of his gamely shoving hands by the wrist and planted a chaste, gentle kiss just below his palm. “Let’s walk together, then,” he suggested, voice as calm and smooth as if they’d just been having a perfectly pleasant chat about nothing in particular.

Taako wanted to scream. “If you’re shit in bed, I swear to every god listening I am going to throw you off _the fucking moon._ ”

Brad just laughed.

***

The second the elevator doors opened on his quarters, he was reaching out to grab Brad by his pressed white collar and Brad was very politely motioning to him with both hands and a courteous,

“May I?”

Taako yanked his hands out of their suggestive dithering and planted them firmly on his ass before following through with his original plan vis-à-vis collar-grabbing.

Brad squeezed experimentally, and then laughed when Taako’s attempts at undoing the buttons of his shirt faltered with a startled squeak. “Why are you in such a rush?” He asked, kneading his fingers into the soft flesh under Taako’s skirt.

It felt very good. It was also very distracting.

“Because every time you open your mouth I can feel myself getting closer to fucking death,” he complained, fingers still stumbling on that first button. “What’s wrong with this shirt, my dude, this is ridiculous-”

 Brad chuckled, and made a slight lifting motion. “May I?” he asked again.

Taako started rattling off an “of course you fucking may, I didn’t invite you in here to-” and then Brad had hoisted him up by his thighs and slotted himself between them. Taako had to abandon the button again to cling to his shoulders for balance. “…have a fucking tea party,” he finished. “Oh, um. Woah. Hi,” he said. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been eye-level with Brad before.

“Hi,” Brad answered with a smile, and then kissed him.

Brad kissed with the carefulness of someone who was acutely aware of the challenges posed by the configuration of his teeth.

And he kissed well.

Taako gave up on the button altogether fumble the tie out of Brad’s hair and bury his hands in it. It was smooth, but not soft, and stiffer than he’d expected- more like touching the bristles of a paintbrush than any of the textures he usually expected from hair.

When Brad’s mouth traveled from his lips to the line of his throat, he nearly shrieked.

Brad stopped, looking at him in concern. “Is this okay?”

“No,” he said immediately, and then, “yes. Yes, keep doing that, no, you don’t need to stop, don’t stop-”

There was something about the combination of the movements of Brad’s mouth and the slight drag of his prominent teeth against his skin that inexplicably sent his head rolling to the side and weird, frantic noises bubbling out of his mouth.

He barely even registered that Brad had somehow loosened the laces of his top and smoothed one side of it off of his shoulder until he realized the shoulder being tended to was bare.

He slapped his palm against Brad’s shoulder desperately, feeling both ridiculous and slightly drunk. “Hey,” he croaked, “hey-”

Brad scraped his teeth very gently over the swell of Taako’s collarbone, and this time, Taako did shriek, scrabbling at his hair and back with hands that couldn’t seem to decide what they should be doing, only that it was very urgent they do it.

He could feel Brad’s smile against his skin.

“Yes, Taako?” he murmured, pressing a kiss into the hollow of his throat.

“Bed,” he demanded, slapping his palm against Brad’s shoulder again, “or couch. Or _wherever_ , I don’t give a fuck-”

Brad hoisted him higher on his waist and carried him further into the living room. “Where to?”

Taako just sort of pointed incoherently before hauling his face up for a kiss. How they managed to make it to the bedroom without tripping over something or running into a wall would forever remain a mystery to him, but the only thing that really alerted him to the change of scenery was the sensation of being tipped backwards onto a bed.

Brad smoothed his hair back from his face again. Kneeling over Taako like he was, he eclipsed the light overhead like a giant.

Taako felt very small and fragile underneath him.

Taako also felt very, _very_ hard.

“Oh, wow. I’ll take _things I didn’t know I was into_ for four hundred, Alex,” he joked weakly.

“Who’s Alex?” Brad asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered, trying again to undo the buttons on Brad’s shirt. “Seriously, though, what the fuck is up with your shirt?”

Brad caught his hands and kissed him on a palm. “Your hands are too small for the buttons,” he answered, and started to pop them open himself. “I have to have them custom made- these shirts aren’t usually made for orcish hands.” He sounded like he was smiling. “And this shirt wasn’t made for elven ones.”

“Yuh-huh,” Taako acknowledged, watching his fingers move from button to button until they came to rest on the closure of his pants.

After a long second of anticipation in which Brad’s hands lingered but did nothing, Taako looked up.

Brad was looking down at him with a vaguely inscrutable smile.

Taako reached for the button himself.

Brad caught him by the wrists. “May I?” he asked again.

“Uh.” Taako wasn’t really sure what he was asking, and then decided he actually didn’t really care. “Okay. Nothing weird, though.”

He certainly didn’t expect it when Brad pressed his hands into the bed over his head, but the way it made his breath catch and his dick ache left him pretty well convinced he was glad it had happened.

“Nothing weird,” Brad promised. “Can you keep these here for me, Taako?”

“Yuh- _huh_ ,” he croaked, shifting a little to try to relieve the feeling that his underwear was growing entirely too tight for comfort.

Brad smiled and kissed him again, slow and a bit too sweet. “Thank you.”

His wrists felt cold when Brad released them. He shivered as fingers traced lightly down the undersides of his arms, and then watched as Brad began to unlace his shirt, as slow and careful as if he were examining a priceless artifact.

He could feel the blood rushing into his face again. His hands started to creep down from their position above his head.

Brad paused and looked at them.

He gathered fistfuls of blanket and forced himself to be still.

He was maddeningly aware of the feeling of each line of lacing whispering across his skin as Brad pulled it free.

By the Brad reached the bottom, he was actively squirming, chewing his lip so hard he was afraid he’d bruise it.

When Brad pushed his shirt open and ran a hand up his stomach and over his chest, he shivered and caved, throwing his hands over his burning face like it would save him from the strange, breathless tension that was building.

Brad chuckled, and then hummed uncertainly.

“You’re so small,” he commented.

“Yeah? Yeah, I guess so,” Taako agreed, shrugging and trying not to yelp when fingers ghosted over his left nipple.

“You’re just… so small, Taako,” Brad repeated, and this time he got the sense it wasn’t just a comment.

When he peered through his hands, he saw that Brad was frowning. “Okay,” he said, “um. And?”

“Taako,” Brad started, running a thumb along the hidden seam of a hipbone, “if you have anywhere to be after this, we should probably reschedule.”

He made a strangled noise that wasn’t quite a laugh and lifted his hands from his face. “Sorry what? Oh, sure, Brad, I’ll just fucking pencil you in for Thursday, sure-”

Brad’s thumb pressed firmly into the seam of that hip. “I’m just saying that if you have any prior engagements, we should probably-”

“My dude, haven’t you heard of a quickie? It’s a beautiful thing,” Taako teased, seizing on both the distraction and the opportunity to explore inside Brad’s shirt. His broad chest was covered in a short but dense pelt of thick, wiry hairs.

“Taako,” Brad said again, “given the, ah… difference in size between us,” he said diplomatically, “if I were to rush through… intimacy with you, you might, um…”

Taako squinted at him, scraping his fingernails across the hard surface of Brad’s stomach. “Spit it out, Bradson.”

Brad took one of Taako’s hands and pressed it to the front of his slacks.

“Wherever it is that you would be going,” Brad said simply, “you wouldn’t be walking there.”

“Oh,” Taako said, propping himself up on an elbow and feeling out the shape of Brad’s erection with an almost morbid fascination. “Holy shit.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t really such a thing as a ‘quickie’ when you’re as small as you are,” Brad told him apologetically. “And I’m… the size I am.”

“Yeah, I legit might die if you put that in me, holy shit,” Taako wheezed, and then started fumbling with the button of Brad’s pants.

Brad seemed a little nonplussed. “Taako, we don’t have to-”

“Oh _no_ , my man, we’re definitely going to try,” he said cheerfully, resorting to just tugging on the closure like that might make it give up the fight.

Brad caught his wrists again. “Later. May-”

“Yuh,” Taako answered immediately, and Brad laughed, pushing his skirt up until it was pooled around his waist.

Taako shivered as he kissed the insides of his thighs, and then yelped as he mouthed his dick through his underwear.

It was torturous, but he held on gamely, convinced this was going good places.

“ _Brad,_ ” he said finally, thighs shaking as Brad sucked lightly on the base of his dick, still through his underwear.

“Mhm?”

“Are you gonna suck my dick or what?” he demanded, or started to demand, because Brad chose halfway through that question to pull his underwear down and slip the head of Taako’s dick into his mouth.

It wasn’t a tight fit, but it was hot, and it was wet, and there was a strong, surprisingly dextrous tongue inside of it. Taako’s hands were in his hair almost immediately.

“Better?” Brad murmured, flicking his tongue against the tight bundle of nerves just under the head.

 _“Yuh-huh,”_ Taako whined, “ohhh shit…”

Brad ran his hands up Taako’s hips and waist, kneading and stroking as he sucked and licked.

“Brad,” Taako wheezed, hands starting skitter aimlessly over his head and shoulders again. “Oh _shit_. Brad-”

“Mhm?” Brad hummed around his dick.

Taako momentarily forgot how to speak. “Fuck me,” he groaned, “just- please, god, I need you to fuck me right fucking _now_ or I’m just gonna blow right in your mouth and it’s-”

Brad slipped Taako’s dick out of his mouth and into his hand. “Right now, hm?”

“Yeah, if that’s cool with you,” Taako mumbled, going for the closure of his pants again. Brad watched him struggle for a moment before popping the button himself and sliding his hand into his underwear.

“Again, Taako,” he murmured, pulling his erection free, “I don’t think you understand: this is not a ‘right now’ situation.” He sounded both regretful and amused. “This is more of an… ‘I finger you for twenty minutes and then maybe, but maybe not’ situation.”

Taako squirmed out from under Brad, stared, and then wrapped a hand around it.

He couldn’t make fingers meet. He wasn’t even close to making his fingers meet.

“Holy shit,” he said again, and then slipped it in his mouth. He couldn’t fit the whole thing in, but he hadn’t expected to be able to.

The noise Brad made in response was indescribable, but the way his hand fisted in Taako’s hair certainly wasn’t.

Taako tried to squirm his way out of his shirt and skirt and underwear without stopping what he was doing, but all that earned him was a dick popping out of his mouth and tapping him on the nose. Brad laughed and then choked off his laughter like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to.

Taako slipped it back into his mouth, unperturbed. Brad groaned. The sound seemed to shudder up from deep inside his chest.

“Taako,” he groaned, twisting one hand deep in his hair and sliding the other along the bare expanse of his back. “Taako, can I finger you?”

Taako popped the dick out of his mouth again. The time it bounced off of his cheek. “Yuh, but I’m probably gonna have to start things off,” he said, “I don’t think you’re just going to be able to slide even one of those sausage fingers into my ass without things getting a little hairy.”

The way Brad’s erection jumped in his hand was telling. Taako looked up at him through his eyelashes.

“You wanna watch me finger myself, my man?” he asked Brad coyly, pressing a kiss against the shaft of his dick.

“Yes,” Brad answered immediately, and with so much intensity that Taako cracked up laughing.

He was still giggling as he crawled on his hands and knees to the edge of the bed to rummage through his bag. He’d brought supplies, of course- half out of habit, and half out of the vain hope that maybe he’d be able to convince Kravitz to come fuck him on that glass floor after all.

The lubricant was fine. He did, however, look at the condom with some doubt.

“You think this’ll work if I cast Enlarge on it?” he asked, and then, “you got some iron for that or do I need to go get mine?”

“I might,” Brad murmured, and passed Taako his pants. “Left front pocket.”

“Why do you- you know what? I don’t want to know,” Taako said, and cast Enlarge on the condom.

He showed the result to Brad.

Brad looked at it, then him, and shrugged. “It’s worth trying.” Taako threw it at him, grabbed the lube, and settled onto one elbow and his knees.

Brad hissed in a breath through his teeth. “Is that… a comfortable position for you?”

Taako shrugged, reaching back with wet fingers to trace a finger around the perimeter of his asshole. “It’s okay,” he said, shivering at the sensation and then shot Brad a wicked grin over his shoulder. “And it looks _aaaamazing_ , doesn’t it?”

One of Brad’s hand smoothed over the swell of Taako’s hip. The other was wrapped around his dick, moving in long, slow strokes. “It really does. Gods,” he breathed, and Taako squeaked in surprise as he palmed an ass cheek and squeezed. “Just look at you.”

When Taako slipped his first finger in, he could almost feel the weight of Brad’s stare. By the third, there was no almost about it: both of Brad’s were roaming over him with an urgency that wasn’t too far removed from impatience.

He slipped his fingers free, tossed the lube back at Brad, and pulled his ass cheeks apart jokingly. “Your problem now, sausage fingers.”

Even though he was expecting it, he still yelped in surprise as the first of Brad’s thick fingers pushed into him. “Hoo boy,” he muttered, “oh shit, you’re, uh, you’re quiet back there, huh?” Brad’s free hand tightened on his hip.

When he said “do you want me to be honest with you, Taako?” his voice was such an unfamiliar-sounding rumble that Taako jumped a little.

“Um,” he mumbled, “yeah?”

“I’m praying to my goddess to make this work,” he rumbled, pistoning his finger in and out with slow, practiced motions, “because I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to fuck someone as badly as I want to fuck you right now.” Taako shuddered and moaned as Brad dragged the nails of his free hand gently down the length of his back. “Just fucking _look at you,_ ” he breathed.

Ordinarily, Taako would’ve laughed, but under the circumstances, he found himself unable to.

When Brad started to work his second finger in, Taako started having doubts- not about his desire to follow through with it, but with whether or not it was going to be physically possible. “Brad,” he panted, looking over his shoulder at the heavy erection Brad was stroking. “Brad, level with me: have you actually fucked an elf before?”

Brad was quiet for worryingly long time. “Humans,” he said, finally, “and a half-elf, once. But never a full-blooded elf.” Taako whined as he pushed the second finger in completely, stroking his own dick in short, quick movements. “I’d asked if you’ve ever been with an orc,” he said drily, “but it’s… very obvious you haven’t.”

“Yuh?” Taako groaned into the bedspread. “You don’t know me.”

Brad laughed at him and then thrust his fingers into Taako’s ass right up to the knuckle. He ran his hand up Taako’s back as he keened, loud and breathless.

“Besides the obvious, Taako? Because I’ve only got two fingers inside you,” he murmured, slipping them in and out with a forcefulness that threatened to make Taako’s legs buckle beneath him, “and you’re already nearly screaming.”

“I’m not nearly screaming,” Taako said, offended by the implication, and then made a liar of himself by responding to Brad starting to work his third finger in with a loud, “oh _shit_ , ohhh shit, oh fuck-”

“Do you want to stop?” Brad asked, slowing.

“No,” Taako whined into the bedspread, “it’s just a lot. You’re just a lot. There is a _lot_ of you.”

Brad’s laugh was a little tense. “You say that _now_.”

Taako found that statement more than slightly ominous.

So later, when Brad asked, “Taako, do you think you’re ready?” there was pretty much no way for him to prevent himself from answering,

“I dunno. Am I?” with such obvious nervousness that Brad was moved to press a kiss into the small of his back and stroke his hair comfortingly.

“If you don’t think you can-”

“Naw,” Taako interrupted, shuddering as Brad’s fingers left him. “Naw, fuck it. Let’s fucking do this thing.”

“It’s probably best if you’re on top,” Brad told him. He shrugged and moved to oblige, but paused when he saw Brad looking at the condom doubtfully.

They both stared at it for longer than was necessary.

In the end, it did fit- a mite too snugly around the thickest part of Brad’s erection, yes, but it fit.

Watching Brad coat himself in lube felt a little like looking over the edge of a cliff and deciding to jump.

“Fuck it,” he said, and threw a leg over Brad’s hips. For a moment, he looked down at the heavy cock below him and wondered if he wasn’t doing something very stupid. “Fuck it,” he said again, and positioned it against his asshole. “Yolo.”

Brad was right. Taako wasn’t too proud to admit it.

Saying _there is a lot of you_ with three of Brad’s fingers in his ass suddenly seemed like the punchline to a very funny joke.

“Holy,” he wheezed, “fucking,” and gasped, “shit, Brad.”

“You’re doing so well, Taako,” Brad said tightly, stroking his hands down Taako’s thighs over and over again like he didn’t quite dare rest them on his hips. As Taako slid further down, his fingers dug into the skin above Taako’s knees hard enough to bruise. “You’re doing so, so well.”

It felt like it took so long for him to ease himself down onto Brad’s dick that when he felt his ass meet the nest of coarse curls at the base of it, he looked down in puzzlement, halfway convinced that it just continued on forever.

Brad’s hands slid up his thighs, up his stomach and his chest, to cup his face. “Amazing,” he groaned, “Taako, you’re amazing.”

“I’m honestly not sure where I put it all now that it’s inside me,” Taako commented, feeling a bit unreal. “Did I just fucking die halfway through? No, my boyfriend would be here if I did.”

Brad laughed and Taako yelped, planting his hands on the chest beneath him for stability. “Oop, there it is, it’s definitely in there, no doubt about it,” he babbled, and Brad pulled him down for a kiss.

“You’re fucking amazing,” Brad told him again, cupping and kneading the soft flesh of his ass admiringly. “I… legitimately can’t believe you were able to do this. You’re incredible.”

Taako flicked his hair out of his face. “Uh, sorry, have you met me?” he mocked gently, jabbing Brad in the chest with a finger. “I’m Taako-”

He was about to follow that revelation with his usual _“you know, from TV?”_ but then Brad’s fingers tightened convulsively on his hips and the cock inside him twitched so hard he felt every last inch of it, so all he really did was yelp with surprise and fall forward onto Brad’s chest.

“What the heck?” he muttered, and then looked up. “What was-”

Brad’s expression was a strange mixture of absolute delirious pleasure, alarm, and what looked like it was probably profound embarrassment.

“Um,” Taako said.

“Um,” Brad responded.

“Good talk, Brad,” Taako told him, and then yelped again when he laughed, because it seemed to reverberate right through him.

“Oh no,” Brad mumbled, “Oh, this is… awkward. Um.”

Taako squinted at him. “What’s up, my man? I thought we were past the hard part here.”

“Heh,” Brad said, “huh. Uh. Taako?”

“Brad?”

“Taako, do you,” he started, “remember how I said I was praying to my goddess?”

“Yeeees,” Taako said slowly, “and?”

“Orcs have a couple of gods-” Brad started.

“Brad,” Taako interrupted, “if you’re about to tell me orcs have a god of boning down, I’m going to throw _myself_ off the moon.”

Brad held his hips very firmly and then told him, “Her name is Luthic-”

Taako slapped his hands down on Brad’s chest so hard his palms stung. “You are not telling me orcs have a fucking god of boning down,” he shrieked, partially out of rage and partially out of jealousy.

Brad tugged him down for another kiss. “I didn’t think she’d be listening,” he admitted between kisses, “I’m sorry, Taako, please-”

Taako scowled and nipped him hard on the lip. “Ohhh? Sorry, I didn’t realize we were inviting divine _voyeurs_ because being mostly sure they won’t answer makes it fine, let me just call Istus like ‘yo girl what’s up I’m fucking a huge nerd’-”

Brad opened his mouth, closed it, and gently squeezed Taako’s ass. “The gods of orcs are not especially huge fans of elves,” he said awkwardly. “So I honestly never thought - but I guess you’re special. You’re special, Taako.”

“This is _news_?” Taako asked him scathingly, slapping his palm down on Brad’s chest in a rapidfire _tap-tap-tap-tap_ to emphasize how Thoroughly Done he was with what already had to be one of the strangest sexual encounters he’d ever had. Top ten. Top twenty, at least. “So what does this mean, Bradson? Okay, so your orcish fuckgoddess is watching- fine, I don’t give a shit, let her watch my sweet ass work,” he snapped. “Can we just bone down already or do you have to burn some incense for a bit while I sit here on your dick like a fucking hood ornament, though?”

Brad almost smiled, visibly hesitating, and then shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure. This isn’t a union that can create children, so I… genuinely have no idea why she’s given it her blessing,” he admitted. “But I guess we can just-”

“Great, good,” Taako said, and rolled up on his dick experimentally.

Brad made a noise like battle wagon engine dying. “Holy shit, Taako.”

“More like ‘holy fuck’, right, because I guess this fuck is holy, hm?” Taako answered without thinking, and Brad just stopped him cold and frowned. “Yeah, no, that one’s on me, that’s on Taako, I don’t blame you for that.”

“Taako-”

“Look, I say a _lot_ of dumb shit, my man,” Taako admitted freely, wiggling his hips a little under Brad’s firm grip in the hopes of getting the ball rolling in the right direction again. “So maybe just like… fuck my dumb ass stupid and I won’t?” He sent Brad a coy, hopeful look through his lashes.

 Brad shook his head disbelievingly, but still smoothed his hands back onto Taako’s ass and began to rock his own hips upwards, setting a slow, shallow pace.

“Ohh yeah, there we go,” Taako groaned, straightening up carefully but leaving his hands planted on Brad’s chest. “Oh _shit.”_

When he started to pop his own hips in short, tight motions, using the chest beneath him as an anchor, Brad sucked in a sharp breath.

“Taako, would you-” he groaned and then shook his head like he’d thought better of whatever he was about to say.

“Hm?” Taako purred, rolling his hips up in a particularly long movement. Now that he’d acclimatized to the sensation of having something so large up his ass, he was having a revelation: he was pretty sure he loved it.

There were a long few seconds where Brad seemed unable to answer, but when he did, all he said was “it’s nothing.”

“Naw,” Taako moaned, sliding all the way back down and rolling his hips in tight circles just for the sensation of it. “Naw, hit me with it.”

“I don’t usually,” Brad started saying, and then groaned, squeezing his ass as he started popping his hips up again. “This isn’t… it’s not how I usually-”

“Position?” he hummed, “or speed?”

“Both,” Brad answered.

Taako considered him. “Okay, my man. So what’re we doing?”

Brad looked a little pained. “If I hurt you at all, just-”

Taako laughed, a noise that might’ve sounded mocking under other circumstances, but came out strange and breathy. “You hurt me, I will Fireball your green ass,” he said confidently, popping his hips up again and then letting them drop sharply. “Don’t even trip.”

Brad pulled him down into a hard kiss, clutching him tightly. “May I?” he breathed.

Taako let him wait a few seconds longer than he had to, just because he could. “Yuh-huh.”

The second he’d given his assent, the world flipped. He went from leaning forward over Brad to leaning back beneath him, his whole weight supported by enormous hands.

“Cree- _zus_ ,” he swore incoherently, tightening his legs around Brad’s thick waist.

“Wrap your arms around my neck,” Brad murmured, and Taako obliged.

From the first thrust, he found himself babbling unintelligibly- the sheer volume of it, the girth and the depth, had been overwhelming when he was riding it, but being ridden felt like having his entire body overload on sensation.

Even through the condom, he could feel every inch, every vein as it slid in and out of him, and when Brad pulled out far enough for the flare of his head to catch on the buzzing nerves of his asshole, he grabbed at nothing and made a noise that wasn’t quite a scream.

“Oh, Taako,” Brad moaned softly, burying his face in the crook of his throat, “gods, if you knew how good you felt-”

“I sure do,” Taako answered stupidly, and then laughed at himself without really knowing why. “Oh _shit_ , you and your beautiful big dick-”

Brad made a small, tense noise and scraped his teeth against the column of throat beneath them. “Taako, you think you can come for me?”

“Huh?” Taako groaned, feeling slow, and then let go of Brad’s neck with one hand to reach for his dick.

“Come for me,” Brad repeated, breathless. “Please, Taako, I need you to come for me.”

Taako whined, stroking himself as Brad fucked up into him with growing intensity. “Yuh-huh,” he croaked. “Fucking wreck me, come on-”

He would literally never admit that all it had taken to drive him over the edge was Brad abandoning any pretense of restraint and pounding into him, but that would still be what Istus wove into her tapestry.

He came with a high, helpless keen, back arched so hard that his hair brushed the bedspread, and Brad groaned out one last,

“Look at _you,_ ”

before an incredibly hard pulse inside of him jerked him out of his euphoric fugue.

“What was-” he started, and then squeaked as it happened again.

The second he saw Brad’s face, he understood, and yelped as it happened yet again.

“How long does this go on for?” he demanded, not uncomfortable but a little overstimulated.

Brad muttered something incoherent and kissed him, hard.

It went on for only a handful of seconds longer, but when it was over, Taako still felt like he could feel the ghost of each pulsation pushing at his asshole.

Brad lay him down on the bed. He paused to wipe Taako clean with a piece of fabric he only vaguely recognized as Brad’s own underwear, which Taako couldn’t decide how he felt about, and then pulled out very slowly, and very carefully.

When he was done, Taako felt the strangest sense of internal vacancy he’d ever experienced. He lay back, just sort of processing what had just happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Brad stripping off the condom.

He wasn’t sure why he half-expected Brad to just up and leave, but it was still a pleasant surprise when he collapsed back into the bed and wound his arms around his waist.

Taako snickered. “You gonna fall asleep on me now?” he teased.

Brad did not answer.

Taako’s smirk wavered. “Bradson,” he said warningly.

Brad still did not answer.

Taako pushed his hair out of his face and pulled off his glasses, disbelieving. His eyes were closed. His breathing was slow and even.

“You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me,” Taako groaned, and then tried to squirm his way out of the circle of Brad’s arms.

He did not succeed.

He tried several more times, writhing and rolling and pushing with all his might, and continued to not succeed.

He was panting and sweating by the time he started patting Brad on the cheek. “Hey. Hey hey hey hey, my man, I know I said I didn’t have plans but an elf’s got _shit_ to do-”

Brad was not disturbed from his slumber, and would remain so, even when Taako resorted to outright open palm slapping.

***

When a voice started coming through Brad’s Stone of Farspeech, Taako turned to stare in its direction with a strong feeling of having fallen into a horror story.

The voice was Lucretia’s.

 _“Brad, I’m sorry, I know it’s very late for you, but it has been brought to my attention that you don’t seem to have made it back to your quarters,”_ her voice said, slow and graceful and clearly concerned, _“I’d just like for you to confirm for me that you’re fine, if that’s not too much of an imposition.”_

He could, in fact, reach Brad’s pants, and therefore could conceivably confirm for Lucretia that Brad hadn’t managed to somehow get himself into some sort of trouble without leaving the confines of the moon base.

But there was a problem with that scenario.

It involved explaining to Lucretia why he was the one answering Brad’s Stone.

 _“Please, Brad, people are very worried- I’m very worried,”_ Lucretia said softly, _“I know, lately, you’ve had some concerns regarding-”_

Taako lunged for Brad’s pants, digging out his Stone in record time.

“Brad Bradson isn’t here right now, please leave a message or call back later,” he said flippantly, or tried to, but ended up mostly half-shrieking. “Good talk, bye now-”

He was, unfortunately, still fumbling with the off switch when Lucretia answered.

 _“Taako?”_ she murmured, sounding less surprised than he would’ve liked. _“Is Brad with you? Can you put him on?”_

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly, “and no. Like… very no. Super duper very no.”

 _“Super duper very no?”_ She sounded very worried.

“He’s asleep,” Taako muttered, “and he won’t wake up.”

He really did not like the pregnant pause Lucretia let follow that.

 _“Ah,”_ she said, sounding a bit calmer, _“but he is fine, then?”_

“Yeee-up, I’d say so,” Taako told her.

She was actually starting to sound very amused. _“I have to say, Taako, I’m surprised. You never seemed to take much of an interest in-”_

“Nope!” Taako shrieked, “Nope! Not happening!” and shut the Stone off with a firm click before pressing his forehead into the bedspread with a long, tormented groan.

***

_Much Later:_

When Brad finally woke up, Taako was ready for him with a stiff, furious smile.

“Six hours, Bradson,” he snarled, just as Brad also said,

“You’re still here,” in a tone of soft wonder.

They both stopped.

Brad looked at Taako’s position in his arms and immediately released him, wiping a hand over his face. “I’m so sorry, Taako, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s not like I would’ve _left_ or anything, I just didn’t wanna spent all day-” Taako babbled.

They both stopped again.

Taako shuffled his clothes on with desperate speed, grabbed his bag, and looked at Brad somewhat uncertainly.

“Uh,” he mumbled, “bye.”

And then he cast Blink and sprinted for the hangar and, eventually, home.

**Author's Note:**

> “yo girl what’s up I’m fucking a huge nerd-” on the wind you hear a faint “…yuck…”
> 
> ORC FACTS:
> 
> \- “At 4 years old an orc is considered a juvenile, and by age 12 it is a fully functioning adult. Most orcs don’t live past the age of 25 due to battle or illness, but an orc can live to about 40, remaining healthy almost up until the end. Luthic’s divine blessing can further extend an orc’s life, though Grummsh is never happy when she uses this power and tends to frown upon on so ‘blessed.’” – Volo’s Guide to Monsters, pg. 85  
> \- “Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Grummsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs’ drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races.” – Monster Manual, pg. 245
> 
> ELF FACTS:
> 
> \- “Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. ... While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice.” – Player’s Handbook, pg. 23  
> \- “An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.” – Player’s Handbook, pg. 23  
> \- “Moons elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-white, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold.” – Player’s Handbook, pg. 23
> 
> SPELL FACTS: 
> 
> \- Blink requires only a verbal and gesticulated components.  
> \- Enlarge/Reduce requires a pinch of powdered iron as a spell component.


End file.
